


Gently into the good night

by purplejabberwocky



Category: Skulduggery Pleasant - Derek Landy
Genre: Coda, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-06
Updated: 2015-06-06
Packaged: 2018-04-03 05:38:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 980
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4088962
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/purplejabberwocky/pseuds/purplejabberwocky
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Punishment is not the answer. Punishment is easy. It’s lazy. Redemption is hard. Redemption makes you work."</p><p>Valkyrie thinks she knows what that means by now. Saracen sets her straight.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Gently into the good night

**Author's Note:**

  * For [AmaraqWolf](https://archiveofourown.org/users/AmaraqWolf/gifts).



> Coda to Dying of the Light, right after that final scene, because that final scene has never made sense to me.
> 
> MAJOR SERIES-END SPOILERS.

Valkyrie waited until Danny had gone into the other room, waited until she couldn’t even hear him anymore except for the chink of china on a plate. She looked back and watched the movement in the frosted glass of the door. It was a good door. It warped anyone behind it, warped them inward and up until they all looked tall and thin. Then she took a deep breath and opened it.

Saracen turned around on her doorstep and gave her a little smile. He looked tired. He looked really tired, especially with the brim of his hat shading his face. It was a cowboy hat. Valkyrie didn’t know why. But his eyes weren’t as hollow as they had been the last time she’d seen him. Hollow, yes—but there was an edge of … of she wasn’t sure. She didn’t think she _wanted_ to know.

Because it looked a lot like acceptance and she didn’t think she could handle that.

“I haven’t lost that much weight, have I?” he asked.

“A little,” Valkyrie admitted, stepping out and pulling the door shut. “How much did you overhear?”

Saracen shrugged. “Some. You’re coming home?”

“I’m thinking about it.”

“That’s not what you said to your friend in there.”

Valkyrie looked over her shoulder at the closed door and then looked down. “Yeah. I know.”

They stood there in a silence that should have been awkward but wasn’t, because awkward only happened when there wasn’t enough weight in a relationship to keep it down. Valkyrie and Saracen had lost their entire worlds together. At least Valkyrie still had her parents and her sister, even though she hadn’t seen them in years. Who did Saracen have?

Just her. Her and Donegan.

_Punishment is the easy option._

“I’m not going to take it back,” she said, for something to say.

“I wasn’t going to ask you to.”

“I told him everything else. I didn’t lie.”

“I know you didn’t.”

“Stop agreeing with me,” Valkyrie snapped, and then laughed unwillingly, and reached up to grip her hair. “God, what’s wrong with me? Don’t answer that.”

“You miss Skulduggery,” Saracen said anyway, and Valkyrie hit him on the shoulder.

“I said _don’t_ answer that.”

Saracen rubbed his shoulder and winced. He hadn’t winced the last time Valkyrie had punched him. It was a pretend wince. A wince that played up the pain more than there was. Last time, he hadn’t even flinched. Just looked at her with blood running down his chin and walked away.

“He deserved better,” Valkyrie said bitterly.

“He got what he wanted, though.”

“He’s _dead_ , Saracen!” Valkyrie shouted, and her eyes blurred with tears and she looked away and blinked and swallowed against the lump in her throat.

He didn’t answer that. He didn’t say anything like, ‘Of course he’s dead. He’s Skulduggery.’ She would have hit him for sure if he had.

“He’s worse than dead,” she went on when she was able to do it without her voice cracking. “He’s been _erased_. He _erased himself_. It should’ve been Ravel.”

“No, it shouldn’t have,” Saracen said flatly.

“Why not? Everything was his fault. He didn’t even stand up and offer to do it himself.”

“We never gave him the chance,” said Saracen. “Just like we wouldn’t have given Skulduggery the chance if it had come out about Vile right after Vile was active.”

Valkyrie had told him. She’d sobbed all over him, at his bedside, told him everything because _there was no one left_. He had looked at her, lying against his pillows and breathing shallowly because of his broken ribs and the misery in his eyes, and said, “I know.”

“How did you know?” she’d asked, stupidly.

“I just know things.”

All along, he’d known.

Valkyrie’s fists clenched. “So what? So Skulduggery didn’t deserve to live?”

Saracen shrugged. “I can’t answer that. I don’t know what it’s like to be evil. But Skulduggery made a choice, a choice to save everyone, because he had made choices before which sacrificed them. He made it because the alternative was to forget that he _could_ save people instead of sacrifice them. He couldn’t do that. He couldn’t do that and still be Skulduggery. If Skulduggery deserves the chance to be someone other than Vile, then Ravel deserves the chance to be someone other than a traitor.”

“You’ve been to see him,” Valkyrie said, and the realisation hit her like a punch in the gut.

“I don’t have anyone else.”

“ _Why_ would you go and see _him_?!”

“Why’d you stay with Skulduggery after you found out he was Vile?”

Valkyrie had no answer to that. She looked away. She hoped Saracen would go quiet again, but it was like these were words he’d been keeping inside for the last five years, just like she had been, and now they were all spilling out. Like she’d done to Danny.

“I wasn’t going to ask you to take it back, Valkyrie. The only way Skulduggery will exist now is if we remember him. By telling stories. By acting like he acted. But you’ve got to stop pretending he’d give up his redemption for the sake of survival. That’s not Skulduggery’s way. You know that.”

She was grateful he didn’t say the next part. He could have.

_You’re undermining everything he did by pretending he’d give it up like that._

There were tears on her cheeks. She wiped them off but they kept coming. She didn’t say anything and she didn’t look at Saracen, but he didn’t say anything either. They just stood there on her doorstep, waiting in silence.

At last Saracen said, “So … You’re coming home?”

Valkyrie took a deep breath and looked up at the sky. It was very blue. Too blue. For the first time in a long time, she didn’t feel like it should have been burning.

“Yes,” she said. “I’m coming home.”


End file.
